Poetry on the Way

I’m pleased to be reading on the opening night of both the Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival (Friday, May 27th) and the Derby Book Festival (Friday, June 3rd).

 

The Bodmin Moor Festival takes place (a tad confusingly?) in Liskeard, at Sterts Theatre, Upton Cross, and the opening reading, which I’m sharing with Welsh poet and Picador author, Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch, runs from 6.30 to 8.00pm.

Details and tickets from  www.bodminmoorpoetryfestival.co.uk or www.sterts.co.uk

The second Derby Book Festival runs from 3 – 11 June and to close out the first evening I shall be in the CUBE Café / Bar at Déda in the Cathedral Quarter, doing my poetry and jazz thing with the pretty marvellous Blue Territory. There’ll be bits and pieces from the Resnick novels and poems from the recent Smith/Doorstop collection, Out of Silence.

 

Earlier that evening, in the same venue, 6.00 – 7.00pm, the fine poet Helen Mort will be reading from her new collection from Penguin, No Map Could Show Them, poems about mountains and the people who climb them.

Tickets for both these shows from …http://www.deda.uk.com

And if you’re in or around Nottingham on Wednesday, May 18th you shouldn’t miss the chance to hear Matthew Caley reading from his fifth collection, Rake, together with Mark Waldron, reading from Meanwhile, Trees, both published by Bloodaxe Books.

http://fiveleavesbookshop.co.uk/events/bloodaxe-books-present-rake-by-matthew-caley-meanwhile-trees-by-mark-waldron/

Giggin’ Around …

With several events I’m due to take part in on the (near) horizon, time for a little gentle self-publicity …

This coming Friday, April 15th, I shall be at the Poetry Café in London’s Covent Garden as one of the guests in Hylda Sims’ long-running monthly poetry and music evenings, Fourth Friday. The other poet reading on this occasion is Danielle Hope and the music, as is quite frequently the case – and why not? – comes from singer-songwriter, Liz Simcock. It all kicks off at 8.00pm and there are floor spots for any poets wishing to try their hand. And this is Liz …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUDwAWQ1sEA&list=PLsTBkU5Nq459CiFEDCAzMayjqW30Cs_Uk&index=1

The following afternoon I shall be returning to Stevenage for just about the first time (other than for a visit to Broadhall Way by Notts County) since I taught there in the early 1970s.

My plan is to talk about some forty years as a professional writer, a career which started in what some might call less than spectacular fashion with Avenging Angel, a tale of everyday Hells Angels published under the so-trying-to-be-trendy name of Thom Ryder and written – the first draft anyway – during my last year of teaching. Shows promise, but must work harder.

As you’ll have noticed from the poster, your admission money gets you tea and cake, added to which there should be a free book of mine – not including, I’m afraid, Avenging Angel – for the first 25 ticket holders to arrive.

http://websites.uk-plc.net/Hertfordshire_Libraries_ticket_sales_and_free_tickets/

And finally, a little further ahead, on Friday, June 3rd, as part of this year’s Derby Book Festival, along with the band, Blue Territory, I shall be reading in a Poetry & Jazz evening at the Cube Café/Bar in Déda on Chapel Street, beginning at 9.30pm.

 

Charlie Resnick’s Beginnings

A week ago now, as part of the Derby Book Festival, I was at Mickleover Library, taking an amble through the beginnings of the Charlie Resnick series, beginning with Lonely Hearts and finishing, as it did last year, with Darkness, Darkness. Along with answering questions as well as I could – and there were a good many – I read from both of those books, starting with Charlie’s first ever appearance, one of the cats sitting on his head as awakes, and ending with his attendance at the funeral of a former miner, both friend and one time foe.

Beginning to end, 1989 to 2014, and, for Charlie, on the surface anyway, not a great deal seemed to have changed. At the end, he’s not so very different to how he began …

He was an overweight man in his early forties, whose narrow eyes were bagged and tired, and who couldn’t find the time to drop his tie off at the cleaners.

… just older.

If only to remind me of those far off days when, as a teacher, I would ask whoever was sitting at the end of a row, to pass along the handouts to their colleagues, I did the same here – the handout at attempt to show the principle influences that went into Resnick’s creation.

 

Social Realism to the right, Police Procedurals to the left …

Any questions on a postcard – or the contemporary equivalent.

On the Road Again …

… as Willie Nelson would say. First up, a trip close to the heart of the East Midlands, otherwise known as Derby, on Monday, 1st June, when I have the honour and pleasure of taking part in the first event of the Derby Book Festival. The venue is Mickleover Library, the time 2.00pm, and I shall be talking about the Charlie Resnick series – how it began and why it’s finishing – as well as reading from the first of the novels, Lonely Hearts, and the last, Darkness, Darkness.

More details here … http://www.derbybookfestival.co.uk

And then on Friday, 5th June, and closer to home, I’m the guest reader at the monthly meeting of Ware Poets in Hertfordshire. I had the pleasure of reading there on a previous occasion – some 25 years ago – and it’s nice to have been invited back.

Venue details: Ware Arts Centre, Kibes Lane, Ware, SG12 7ED.